Mr. Speaker, we have a Prime Minister who is more concerned with pursuing his own interests, his own advantage and his own agenda and painting his own image and maintaining that image, than he is with serving the well-being of Canadians and looking after their needs, looking after their desires and looking after what Canada as a whole requires to stay a strong, free nation.
We see one example of this before the House today, and that is that the government has actually taken $600 million to give to the so-called free and independent press. Let me clarify. I believe in the free and independent press, and those of us on this side of the House very much respect that. The media should stay free and independent from being impacted or manipulated by the government of the day. That is a fact. That is what we rely on in this country. We are not Turkey. We are not China. We are not Russia. We are Canada, and I am proud of being Canadian, as are all the members on this side of the House and as are the vast majority of Canadians.
In fact, so many people are proud of being Canadian that those who are not want to be. Many, many people want to come into our country and call this place home. One of the reasons they want to call this place home is because of the freedom we enjoy in this country and because of the protection of our individual rights and liberties. Part of this whole picture of what it is to be Canadian is the principle that the media or the press stay independent of the government. Therefore, the fact that $600 million has been gifted to the media from the current government is a huge problem.
Canadians are, of course, rightly concerned about this. I have heard from many of them in my riding of Lethbridge, Alberta. As I have travelled across Canada and gone into other ridings, I have heard from individuals there too. However, they are not the only ones who are concerned about this. It is not just individual constituents. In fact, it is journalists as well. Numerous veteran journalists have come forward and shared that they too are very concerned about what is going on.
I want to talk about that in just a moment, but first I will outline the motion before the House today. Those who are a part of the Conservative caucus put forward the following motion:
That the House:
(a) take note of the importance of a free and independent press to a healthy democracy;
(b) express its belief that it is inappropriate for partisan political actors to pick winners and losers in the media in an election year;
(c) condemn the inclusion of Unifor, a group that has taken and continues to take partisan political positions, in the panel that will oversee the distribution of the $600-million media bailout;
and (d) call on the government to immediately cease trying to stack the deck for the election with their media bailout and replace it with a proposal that does not allow government to pick winners and losers.
This is the motion before the House. It is called an opposition day motion. Those in the opposition, my Conservative colleagues and I, can put forward an idea that represents what we are hearing from many Canadians across this country and plead with the current government that it should be accepted. This motion is open to all parties and members in this House to vote in favour of or against.
The Liberals have already determined that the $600-million media bailout is a good idea and that interfering with a free and independent press in Canada is something they do not have a problem with. They plan to go in that direction, but for those of us on this side, I reiterate that we would like to defend the independence of our media.
The Liberals would say that they have maintained independence, that a panel of eight individuals has been put together and that the eight individuals will be the ones who determine where the money goes and how it is divvied up. The interesting thing is that on this panel of eight individuals, there is partisanship.
The most obvious one that is staring us in the face is the fact that Unifor, a union, has been put on this panel that will make these decisions. The head of Unifor has actually come out and said that he would be, to use his words, “Andrew Scheer's worst nightmare”. That he would say he is going to be “Andrew Scheer's worst nightmare” means—